Evolution-facts.org

"The theory of evolution suffers from
grave defects, which are more and more apparent as time advances. It
can no longer square with practical scientific knowledge. "*Albert
Fleishmann, Zoologist.

"Our theory of evolution has become . . one
which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every
conceivable observation can be fitted into it . . No one can think
of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on
a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified
systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have
become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part
of our training." L. C. Birch and P. Ehrlich, Nature, April 22,
1967.

"I argue that the theory of evolution' does not
take predictions, so far as ecology is concerned, but is instead a
logical formula which can be used only to classify empiricisms
[theories] and to show the relationships which such a classification
implies . . these theories are actually tautologies and, as such,
cannot make empirically testable predictions. They are not
scientific theories at all. "*R. H. Peters, "Tautology in
Evolution and Ecology," American Naturalist, (1976) Vol. 110, No. 1,
p. 1. (Emphasis his.]

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the
result of an act of creation." *Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted
Loom: Mind In the Universe (1981), p. 19.

Introduction

How old is Planet Earth? This is an important
question, for even though long ages of time are not a proof of
evolution, yet without the long ages evolution could not occur (if it
were possible for it to occur).

Actually, there are many evidences that our world
is quite young. Here are some of them:

First we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE STARS
that the universe itself is quite young:

I - STAR CLUSTERS There are many star clusters
in the universe. Each one is a circular ball composed of billions upon
billions of stars, each with its own orbit. Because the orbits are
elliptical, they have a tendency to be interlocking. An extremely large
circular star cluster, with similar stellar orbits within it is found at
the center of each saucer-shaped island universe. Evidence indicates
that each of these giant packs of stars is moving in a certain
direction. Science tells us that some of
these clusters with their stars--are moving so rapidly that it should be
impossible for them to remain together if the universe were, very old.

2 - LARGE STARS Some
stars are so enormous in diameter that it is thought that they could not
have existed for even a few million years,
otherwise their initial larger mass would have been impossibly large.
These massive stars radiate energy very rapidly some as much as 100,000
to 1 million times more rapidly than our own sun. On the hydrogen basis
of stellar energy, they could not have
contained enough hydrogen to radiate at such fast rates for long ages,
because their initial mass would have had to be far too gigantic.

3 - HIGH-ENERGY STARS Some stars are radiating
energy so intensely that they could not possibly have survived for a
long period of time. This includes the
very bright 0 and B class stars, the Wolf-Rayert stars, and the P Cygni
stars. Radiation levels of 100,000 to 1 million times as much as our own
sun is emitted by these stars! Yet, by the standard solar energy theory,
they do not contain enough hydrogen to perpetuate atomic fusion longer
than approximately 50,000 to 300,000 years.

4 - BINARY STARS Many
of the stars in the sky are binaries: two stars circling one another.
But many of these binary systems point us to a young age for the
universe.

"Many such pairs consist of two very different
types of stars, one theoretically very old and the other young. How
could this be if they had to evolve together in order to form a
pair? Such problems have frustrated theorists in their efforts to
understand how binary stars could have evolved. Perhaps the great
age of stars is a fiction." Robert E.
Kofahl, Evolution Refuter (1980), p. 128.

5 - HYDROGEN IN UNIVERSEAccording
to one theory of solar energy, hydrogen is constantly being converted
into helium as stars shine. But hydrogen cannot be made by converting
other elements into it. *Fred Hoyle, a leading astronomer, maintains
that, if the universe were as old as Big Bang theorists contend,
there should be little hydrogen in it. It would all have been
transformed into helium by now. Yet stellar spectra reveal an abundance
of hydrogen in the stars, therefore the universe must be youthful.

6 - AGE OF THE UNIVERSE For
much more information on this topic, see the chapter appendix entitled
Age of the Universe, at the end of chapter 3 (Origin of the Solar
System).

Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM OUR
SOLAR SYSTEMthat our solar system is quite young:

7 - SOLAR COLLAPSE Research
studies indicate that our sun is gradually shrinking at a steady rate of
seconds of arc per century. At its rate of shrinkage, as little as
50,000 years ago the sun would have been so large that our oceans would
boil. But in far less a time than 50,000 years life here would have
ceased to exist, for recent studies have disclosed that neither the size
of the sun, nor our distance from it, could be much greater or
smaller for life to be sustained on our planet. (See chapter 2, Origin of
the Stars, for more on this. Also see "The Shrinking Sun" in Creation
Research Society Quarterly, June 1980, pp. 57-59.)

"Since 1836, over one hundred different
observers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval
Observatory have made direct, visual measurements that indicate that
the sun's diameter is shrinking at a rate of about. 1 percent each
century or about five feet per hour! Furthermore, records of solar
eclipses indicate that this rapid shrinking has been going on for at
least the past 400 years. Several indirect techniques also confirm
that the sun is shrinking, although these inferred collapse rates
are only about 1/7th as much."W. T. Brown, In the Beginning
(1989), p 19.

8 - SOLAR NEUTRINOS In 1968 it was discovered
that the sun is emitting hardly any neutrinos. This evidence points
directly to a very youthful sun. These
neutrinos ought to be radiating outward from the sun in very large
amounts, but this is not occurring. This fact, coupled with research
discoveries that the sun is shrinking in size, point to a
recently-created sun. (See solar collapse and antimatter in chapter
2, Origin of the Stars, for more information on this.)

"The lack of solar neutrinos is almost
irrefutable evidence for a recently created sun . . .

"If the sun had formed as is assumed by most
scientists today, nuclear fusion could never have become is energy
source. Evidence from the solar neutrino experiment, global solar
oscillations, and measured solar shrinkage all are strong evidence
against the existence of nuclear fusion in the sun. Any alternate
energy source necessarily means a shorter maximum lifetime."Paul
M. Steidl, "Solar Neutrinos and a Young Sun" in Creation Research
Society Quarterly, June 1980, pp. 60, 64.

9 - COMETS Comets
journey around the sun and are assumed to have the same age as our world
and solar system. But, as *Fred Whipple has acknowledged, astronomers
have no idea where or how comets originated. Yet we know that they are
continually disintegrating. This is because they are composed of bits of
rocky debris held together by frozen gases and water. Each time a
comet circles the sun, some of the ice is evaporated and some of the gas
is boiled away by the sun's heat. Additional material is lost through
gravitational forces, tail formation, meteor stream production and
radiative forces. The most spectacular part of a comet is its tail,
but this consists of material driven away from its head by solar energy.
All the tail material is lost in space as the comet moves onward.

A number of comets have broken up and dissipated
within the period of human observation. Some of those regularly seen in
the nineteenth century have now vanished. Others have died spectacularly
by plunging into the sun.

Evidently all the comets should self-destruct
within a time frame that is fairly short.
Careful study has indicated that the effect of this dissolution process
on short-term comets would have totally dissipated them within 10,000
years.

There are numerous comets circling our sun,
including many short-term ones, with no source of new comets known to
exist. If they were "millions of years old," the original size of each
comet would have had to be larger than our sun,in which case our sun
would have been orbiting the comets, and not vice versa! Yet we have
hundreds of comets in our solar system with closed elliptical orbits,
proving that they are locked into our solar system and did not originate
outside of it.

"Each time a comet approaches the sun on the
near part of its orbit, the sun's radiation warms and drives away
part ofthe gases, dust, and frozen water it contains.
Moreover, the strong gravitational force near the sun partially
disrupts the solid chunks making up the core of the comet.
Ultimately, these effects of the sun cause the comet to disintegrate
and disappear, and this has actually been observed to happen.

"Careful studies of comets by British astronomer
R.A. Lyttleton and others have led to the conclusion that all of the
short-term comets should have disappeared in about 10,000 years."R.E.
Kofahl and ICL Seagraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 144.

Picture from page 155

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TO ENLARGE

"Short-term comets" includes all those which
return close to the sun every several centuries or less. According to
Lyttleton's calculations (and he is a confirmed evolutionist), they
would have all been wiped out within 10,000 years.
See *R.A. Lyttleton's 1968 book,
Mysteries of the Solar System, for more information on this.

In reply, evolutionists speculate that there is a
hypothetical "Oort cloud" on the edge of the solar system, which is
manufacturing new comets. But there is no scientific evidence that such
a cloud exists.

"Evolutionary theories are totally incapable of
accounting for comets in an old solar system. They cannot explain
the formation, maintenance or return of comets. the chemical
composition, behavior, and orbits of comets are not consistent with
large ages and naturalistic formation. Comets are young objects. And
since there is no natural mechanism which can account for a recent
formation of comets, they must have been created recently in a
recently created solar system."Paul
Steidl, "Comets and Creation" in Creation Research Society
Quarterly, March 1987, p. 159.

"According to Richardson's figures, out of an
original family of 1,000 short-period comets, at the end of 3,000
years only 1 or 2 would be left! Slusher concludes, 'The destruction
and the loss of comets puts a definite upper limit on the age of the
solar system. Instead of 4.5 billion years, it appears at the most
to be only a few to several thousand years old.' "News
note in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1973, p. 174.

10 - COMET WATER It
has only been in recent years that scientists have discovered that
comets are primarily composed of water, and that so many small comets
are continually striking the earth. Yet each strike adds more water to
our planet. Scientific evidence indicates
that, if the earth was billions of years old, our oceans would be filled
several times over with water.

"Photographs, taken from earth-orbiting
satellites, seem to show tiny, ice-filled comets striking the earth's
upper atmosphere at a rate of one every three seconds. As each comet
vaporizes, about 100 tons of water should be added to the earth's
atmosphere. If this began when the evolutionists say the earth started
to evolve, the earth and all its oceans should have several times more
water than it now has."W. T. Brown, In the
Beginning (1989), p 18.

11 - SOLAR
WIND As the sun's radiation flows outward, it applies an outward
force on very, very small particles orbiting the sun.
All of the particles smaller than 100,000th of a centimeter in diameter
should have long ago been "blown out" of our solar system, if the solar
system were billions of years old. Yet research studies by satellites in
space have shown that those small particles are abundant and still
orbiting the sun. Therefore our solar system is quite young.

12 - SOLAR DRAG This
is a principle known as the "Poynting-Robertson Effect." A
solar drag is exerted by our sun on the small rocks and particles
(micrometeoroids) in our solar system. This causes these particles to
spiral down into the sun and be destroyed. The sun, acting like a
giant vacuum cleaner, sweeps up about 100,000 tons (90,720 metric tons)
of micrometeoroids each day. The actual process by which this occurs has
been analyzed. Each particle absorbs energy from the sun and then
re-radiates it in all directions. This causes a slowing down of the
particle in its orbit and causes it to fall into the sun. At its
present rate, our sun would have cleaned most of the dust and particles
in less than 10,000 years, and all of it within 50,000 years.

Yet there is an abundance of these small pieces of
rock, and there is no known source of replenishment. This is because
each solar system would lock in its own micrometeoroids so they could
not escape to another one, and the gravity on each planet and moon would
forbid any of its gravel to fly out into space.

(In summary: Particles smaller than 100,000th of a
centimeter are hurled out of the solar system by the solar wind effect,
andparticles
larger than that are pulled into the sun by
the Poynting-Robertson Effect. The Poynting-Robertson Effect is
illustrated by rain which, falling on a rapidly moving car, tends to
slightly slow it. In a similar manner, solar radiation, striking
particles orbiting the sun, lessens their speed. )

Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE OTHER
PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM that it is quite young:

13 - TEMPERATURE
AND EROSION ON VENUS Temperatures on the surface of the planet Venus
reach 900F [482C]. *Emmanuel Velikovsky predicted that such a high
Venusian surface temperature would be found, and so it turned out.
Velikovsky said that this would provide clear evidence that Venus was
only a few thousand years old: Both this high temperature, as well as
other surface features, do indeed support a young age for that planet.
Many large craters up to 100 miles [160.9 km] in diameter pock its
surface. Yet scientists cannot explain how meteors could get through the
dense carbon dioxide atmosphere without burning up. They are also
astounded that Venus should show such minor effects of erosion. The
dense atmosphere should long ago have worn away all the craters if the
planet has the age postulated by evolutionary theory (4 billion years).

14-EROSION AND WATER ON MARS A
similar problem exists in relation to the planet Mars. When the Mariner
satellites orbited Mars, they sent back detailed photographs of its
surface. Large numbers of craters and volcanoes were seen, as well as a
dust storm that lasted for months. It was obvious that many of the
craters had sharp edges, indicating only a small amount of erosion.
Yet more than a few thousand years of the kind of weather activity
regularly occurring on Mars would have seriously eroded those edges.
Long-term erosion should also have obliterated the strong color
differences clearly visible on the surface of the planet.

A small amount of water has been found on Mars.
But powerful ultraviolet radiation from the sun should long ago have
split the hydrogen and oxygen apart,
releasing the oxygen into the atmosphere while the hydrogen escapes into
outer space. There should now be no water and a sizable amount of oxygen
above the surface. But this is not the case. Considerable amounts of
hydrogen are indeed now observed to be escaping from the planet into
outer space, but there is very little oxygen in the atmosphere, and the
water is still there on the surface. It is all a great mystery to
scientists who, in spite of the evidence, declare the planet to be
billions of years old.

15 - COMPOSITION OF SATURN'S RINGS* G. P.
Kuiper reported in 1967 that the trillions of particles in the rings
circling the planet Saturn are primarily composed of solid ammonia.
Since solidified ammonia has a much higher vapor pressure than even ice,
reputable scientists recognize that it could not survive long without
vaporizing off into space. This is a strong indicator of a young age for
Saturn's rings. (More on this will be found in an appendix, entitled
Age of the Universe, at the end of chapter 3 (Origin of the Solar
System).

16- BOMBARDMENT OF SATURN'S RINGS Meteoroids
bombarding Saturn's rings would have destroyed them in far less than
20,000 years.

"The rings that are orbiting Saturn, Uranus,
Jupiter, and Neptune are being rapidly bombarded by meteoroids.
Saturn's rings, for example, should be pulverized and dispersed in
about 10,000 years."W.T.Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p 18 [former
engineering professor at MIT, and later chief of Science and
Technology Studies, U. S. Air-War College].

17-MORE RING PROBLEMS NASA
Voyager treks have disclosed that Jupiter and Uranus also have rings
encircling them! (In addition, a 1989 Neptune fly-by revealed that it
also has rings--four of them.) These discoveries have only augmented the
problem of the evolutionists, for it would indicate a young age for
those planets also. They try to come up with a theory that can explain
one set of rings and then more are discovered elsewhere and their
theories are again thrown into confusion. *Bradford Smith, a Voyager
scientist, summarized their quandary in this way:

"The theory that explained how Saturn's rings
could persist through 4.6 billion years of solar system evolution
also explained why Saturn was the only planet that could have a
ring.

"Then those theories had to be revised to
account for the rings of Uranus. The revisions implied that Jupiter
would not have a ring. Now Jupiter has been found to have a ring and
we have to invent a theory to explain it . .

"Dust and grain-sized particles can be ruled out
as major constituents of the ring [of Jupiter]. The intense
radiation in Jupiter's magnetic field would sweep them out. . No
theory has yet been developed that explains how all three of these
planets could have rings for so long."*Bradford Smith, quoted in
Mark Tippetts,"Voyager Scientists on Dilemma's Horns," in Creation Research
Society Quarterly, December 1979, p. 185.

18-JUPITER'S MOONS The
Voyager I space probe was launched on September 5, 1977. Aimed at the
planet Jupiter, it made its closest approach to that planet on March 5,
1979. Thousands of pictures and thousands of measurements were taken of
Jupiter and its moons.

Ever since Galileo first saw them, its four
largest moons have been called "Galilean moons." This new data about
these four moons provide us with invaluable information. Io is the
innermost of the four, and was found to have seven active volcanoes)
These volcanoes spew plumes of ejecta from 60 to 160 miles [96.5 to 257
km] above Io's surface. This is astounding.

Nothing on our planet can match this continuous
stream of material being shot out by Io's volcanoes at a velocity of
2,000 miles per hour [3,218 km per hour]. The usual evolutionary model
portrays all the planets and moons as being molten 5 billion years ago.
During the next billion years they are said to have had active
volcanoes. Then, 4 billion years ago, the volcanism stopped as they
cooled. Io is quite small, yet it has the most active volcanoes we know
of. Obviously, it is quite young and its internal heat has not had time
to cool.

The evolutionist reply to this is that perhaps
there might be radioactive rocks below its surface which are causing
those volcanoes!

"What causes such violent volcanic activity? To
keep a body the size of Io in a state ofcontinuous volcanic
activity through geologic time by radiogenic heating would require
an unreasonably large fraction of long-lived radionuclides. "*Elske
Smith and *Kenneth Jacobs, Introductory Astronomy (1973), p. 962.

Of the five Galilean moons, Ganymede and Callisto
have no volcanoes and a high density of impact craters, Io has volcanoes
and no impact craters, and Europa has no volcanoes and no impact
craters. Io has the most marks, pits, and brightly colored areas of any
of the four, but no impact craters.

If all four moons evolved, they should be
essentially alike in physical characteristics. The theorized millions of
years they have existed should cause them to have the same amount of
volcanoes and impact craters, but this is not so. In contrast, a recent
creation would explain Io's volcanoes and the variety of surface
features.

More recent data now indicate that Jupiter's moon,
Titan, may also have volcanoes.

Next we shall consider

EVIDENCE FROM OUR OWN MOON

that it is quite young:

19 - MOON DUST Although
most people do not know it, one of the reasons so much money was spent
to send a rocket to the moon was to see how thick the dust was on its
surface)

Evolutionists had long held to the fact (as we do)
that the earth and moon are about the same age. But many scientists
think the earth and its moon are billions of years old. If that were
true, the moon would by now have built up a 20-60 mile 132 to 96.5 km]
layer of dust on it! In the 1950s, * R.A. Lyttleton, a
highly-respected astronomer, said this:

"The lunar surface is exposed to direct
sunlight, and strong ultra-violet light and X-rays [from the sun]
can destroy the surface layers of exposed rock and reduce them to
dust at the rate of a few ten-thousandths of an inch per year. But
even this minute amount could, during the age of the moon, be
sufficient to form a layer over it several miles deep."*R.A.
Lyttleton, quoted in R. Wysong, Creation-Evolution Controversy, p.
175.

In 5 to 10 billion years, 3 or 4/10,OOOths of an
inch per year would produce 20-60 miles [32 to 96.5 km) of dust. In view
of this, our men at NASA were afraid to send men to the moon. Landing
there, they would be buried in dust and quickly suffocate! So first NASA
sent an unmanned lander to its surface, which made the surprising
discovery that there is not even 20 feet [32 km] of dust on the moon!
But in spite of that discovery, Neil Armstrong was decidedly worried
about this dust problem as his March 1970 flight in Apollo 11 neared. He
feared his lunar lander would sink deeply into it and he and Edwin
Aldrin would perish. But because the moon is young, they had no
problem. There is not over 2 or 3 inches [5.08 or 7.62 cm] of dust on
its surface! That is the amount one would expect if the moon were
about 6-8,000 years old.

Dr. Lyttleton's facts were correct; solar
radiation does indeed turn the moon rocks into dust. With only a few
inches of dust, the moon cannot be older than a few thousand years.

It is significant that studies on the moon have
shown that only 1 /60th of the one- or two-inch dust layer on the moon
originated from outer space. This has been corrobated by still more
recent measurements of the influx rate of dust on the moon, which also
do not support an old moon.

There has been a noticeable silence on this matter
after the Apollo landings began. Evolutionary scientists are baffled by
this obvious evidence for a young moon, when all theoretical
calculations do, indeed, support Lyttleton's analysis that if the moon
were really old, it would have a great thickness of moon dust resulting
from millions of years of bombardment by solar energy and by meteorites
of all sizes.

Before the first manned landing on the moon,
*Isaac Asimov summarized the problem of thick moon dust produced over
the billions of years that it has existed:

"But what about the Moon? It travels through
space with us and although it is smaller and has a weaker gravity,
it, too, should sweep up a respectable quantity of micro-meteors.

"To be sure, the Moon has no atmosphere to
friction the micro-meteors to dust, but the act of striking the
Moon's surface should develop enough heat to do the job. . On the
Moon there are no oceans to swallow the dust, no winds to disturb
it, or life forms to mess it up generally, one way a another. The
dust that forms must just lie there, and if the Moon gets anything
like Earth's supply, it could be dozens of feet thick. In fact, the
dust that strikes crater walls quite probably rolls downhill and
collects at the bottom, forming drifts that could be 50 feet deep or
more. Why not?

"I get a picture, therefore, of the first
spaceship [to the moon], picking out a nice level place for landing
purposes, coming slowly downward tail-first and sinking majestically
out of sight." *Isaac Asimov, Asimov on
Science: A Thirty-Year Retrospective (1989), pp. xvi-xvii (This was
*Asimov's first published science essay (1958), reprinted in a 1989
book.)

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20 - LUNAR SOIL Analysis
of lunar soil negates the possibility of long ages for the moon's
existence. The dirt on the moon does not reveal the amount of soil
mixing that would be expected if the moon were very old.

21 - LUNAR ISOTOPES Many
wonder what value there has been in collecting moon rocks. One of the
most surprising moon rock discoveries is seldom mentioned:
Short-lived Uranium 236 and Thorium 230 were found in those stones!
Short-term radioactive isotopes do not last long; they rather quickly
turn into their end product, which is lead. If the moon were even
50,000 years old, these short-life radioisotopes would long since have
decayed into lead. But instead they were relatively abundant in the moon
rocks! The importance of this should not be underestimated. The moon
cannot be older than several thousand years.

One of the objectives of the moon trips was to
find evidence in the moon rocks that would support evolutionary theories
about its origin. But that proved to be unproductive. It is of interest
that the 12 Apollo astronauts who landed on the moon, from 1969 through
1972 (when the U.S. lunar landing program ended), brought back to earth
a total of 842 pounds [381.9 kg] of lunar rocks and dust. Divided into
the total cost of the Apollo program, which was estimated at $50 billion
when the project ended, the moon samples cost roughly $3 million per
ounce [28.35 g]!

22 - LUNAR RADIOACTIVE HEAT Rocks
brought by Apollo teams from the moon have been dated by the various
radiometric methods. A variety of very conflicting dates has resulted
from these tests (see chapter 7, Dating Methods, for a discussion of
this). But the factor of relatively high radioactivity of those rocks
indicates a young age for the moon:

"The content of radioactive elements in the moon
rocks is so high that if the moon were actually millions of years
old, the heat produced by radioactive decomposition would have
melted the moon."R. E. Kofahl and K.L.
Segraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 145.

23 - LUNAR GASES Several inert gases have
been found on the surface of the moon. Scientists believe that these
gases came from the sun, in the form of "solar wind."
Mathematical calculation reveals that, at today's intensity of solar
wind, the amount of inert gases found on the moon would be built up in
1,000 to 10,000 years, and no longer. These calculations are based on
Argon 36 and Krypton 84 concentrations. Even 20,000 years ago would be
far too lengthy a time. Therefore the moon could not be older than about
6-10,000 years.

24 - LUNARPHENOMENA A
growing collection of data of transient lunar activity (moonquakes, lava
flows, gas emissions, etc.) reveals that the moon is not a cold, dead
body. It is still adjusting to inner stresses and is not yet in thermal
equilibrium. Yet, all things considered, if the moon were very old it
should not show such thermal activity.

25 - LUNARRECESSION
Scientists have discovered two interesting facts: (1) the moon is
already far too close to the earth, and (2) it is gradually moving
farther away from us. This is called recession ofthe moon.
Due to tidal friction, the moon is slowly spiraling outward away from
planet earth! Based on the rate at which the moon is receding from
us, the earth and the moon cannot be very old. This is an important
point and in no way can be controverted. The present rate of
recession clearly indicates a young age for the earth-moon system.
If the moon were older, even 20 to 30,000 years old, it would at that
earlier time have been so close that it would have fallen into the
earth!

"Since 1754, observations of the moon's
orbit have indicated that it is receding from the earth. As tidal
friction gradually slows the earth's spin, the laws of physics require
the moon to recede from the earth. However, the moon should have moved
from near the earth's surface to its present distance in several billion
years less time than the 4.6 billion year age that evolutionists assume
for the earth and moon."W. T.
Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p 17.

Next we shall consider

EVIDENCE FROM THE
ATMOSPHERE

that the earth is quite young:

26-ATMOSPHERIC HELIUM The
radioactive decay of either uranium or thorium produces helium.
According to evolutionary theory, these decay chains have been going on
for billions of years, and should therefore have produced a much larger
quantity of helium than is found in our world. The amount of
helium on our planet is far too small, if our world has existed for long
ages.

To fit the evolutionary pattern, our atmosphere
would now have to contain much more than our present 1.4 parts per
million of helium. Some evolutionists have suggested that the helium is
escaping out into space, but no evidence has ever been found to
substantiate this. Research has shown that, although hydrogen can
escape from the earth, helium is not able to reach "escape velocity."
In order to do so, the temperature of the planet would have to be too
high to support the life that evolutionists say has been here for over a
billion years.

To make matters worse, not only are we not
losing helium to outer space, we are getting more of it from there!
Cook has shown that helium, spewed out by the sun's corona, is probably
entering our atmosphere.

There is, at the present time, 3.5 x 1015 grams of
helium in our atmosphere, and the rate of helium formation is about 3 x
1011 grams per year (* M.A. Cook, "Where Is the Earth's Radiogenic
Helium?" in Nature, January 26, 1957, p. 213.) Calculations based on
this information indicates a very youthful age for our planet.

"If the earth was billions of years old, the
radioactive production of helium in the earth's crust should have
added a large quantity of helium to the atmosphere. Current
diffusion models all indicate that helium escapes to space from the
atmosphere at a rate much less than its production rate. The low
concentration of helium actually measured would suggest that the
earth's atmosphere must be quite young."*L.
Vardiman, "The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere Estimated by its
Helium," Proceedings of the First International Conference on
Creationism, Vol. 2, Creation Science Fellowship, (1986).

"Helium gas being released from radioactive
decay is continually being released into the atmosphere from the
earth's crust. The estimated rate of this release, compared with the
total helium now in the atmosphere, suggests that the atmosphere may
be only about 12,000 to 60,000 years old . . [To add to the problem]
it may be that helium from the sun is adding to the earth's
atmospheric helium."Robert Kofahl, Evolution Refuter (1980), p.
125.

Atmospheric helium is produced from three sources:
(1) radioactive decay of uranium and helium in the earth's crust and
oceans; (2) cosmic helium flowing into our atmosphere from space, but
especially from the sun's corona; (3) nuclear reactions in the earth's
crust caused by cosmic ray bombardment. Since the atmosphere now
contains about 4 billion tons (3.63 billion metric tons] of He-4, and
assuming that only uranium and thorium are the sources of it all and
that its release rate has been constant, the age of the earth can be
calculated from it: that point in the past when there was zero He-4 in
the atmosphere.

"One prominent scientist has calculated the
total annual rate of helium-4 flow into the atmosphere, not
including cosmic helium, to be 330,000 tons [299,376metric
tons] per year. From this rate we find that the atmosphere
[enveloping our planet] has a maximum age of 12,000 years."R.E.
Kofahl and K L Segraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 186.

After stating the above, Kofahl and Segraves
conclude that, using all three helium sources in the calculation,
earth's atmospheric age would be reduced to 10,000 years.
In addition to this, a worldwide catastrophic event in the past such as
the Flood, could for a short time have unleashed much larger amounts of
helium into the atmosphere. Such an event could significantly reduce the
total atmospheric age. Helium content is a good measure, since there is
no known way it can escape from the atmosphere into outer space.

27 - CARBON 14 DISINTEGRATION The present
world-wide buildup of radiocarbon in the atmosphere would have produced
all the world's radiocarbon in several thousand years.
Yet, ironically, it is Carbon 14 that is used by evolutionary scientists
in an attempt to prove that life has existed on our planet for millions
of years!

*Willard Libby won a Nobel Prize for his discovery
of radiocarbon dating. His dating method has several flaws, one of which
we will mention here. He assumed that the C-14 rate of production would
equal its rate of disintegration. But Robert Whitelaw, a nuclear and
engineering expert at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, found that the
production rate is not equal to the disintegration rate. In fact, his
calculations reveal a recent turning on of the C-14 clock, otherwise
the two factors would be balanced. Whitelaw's research indicates that
the clock was turned on approximately 8,000 years ago.

(Much more information on radiocarbon dating will
be found in chapter 7, Dating Methods.)

Next we shall consider

EVIDENCE FROM
METEORITES

that the earth is quite young:

28 - METEOR DUST Meteors
are continually hurtling into the atmosphere and landing on our planet.
They are then known as meteorites. But small amounts of meteor dust
(called micrometeors and too small to see) also enter our atmosphere,
and gradually settle to earth. The composition of these materials is
iron, nickel, and silicate compounds.

On the average, about 20 million meteors collide
with the earth's atmosphere every 24 hours. It is now known that,
because of meteorites and meteorite dust, the earth increases in weight
by about 25 tons [22.7 mt] each day.

We have here another evidence of a young earth,
for the amount of meteorites and meteorite dust earlier accumulated in
rock strata, in relation to the amounts reaching the earth at present,
would indicate an age in thousands of years, not millions.

*Hans Pettersson of the Swedish Oceanographic
Institute did careful study into the subject. Here is a report on his
findings by *Isaac Asimov:

"Pettersson calculated that the total quantity
of dusts of meteor origin in the atmosphere, up to a height of 60
miles [96.5 km] amounts to 28,600,000 tons [25,945,920 mt] . . half
the total 14,300,000 tons [12,973,000 mt] of suchdust settles to earth each year, as [another]
14,300,000 tons [12,973,000 mt]of new dust must enter the
atmosphere . . Of course, this goes on year after year, and the
earth has been in existence as a solid body for a good long time,
for perhaps as long as 5 billion years. If, through all that time,
meteor dust had settled to the earth at the same rate it does today,
then by now, if it were undisturbed, it would form a layer 54 feet
[164.5 dm] thick over all the surface of the earth."*Isaac
Asimov," 14 Million Tons of Dust per Year" in Science Digest, p. 34

Asimov's article was afterward corroborated by an
article by Pettersson in the February 1960 issue of Scientific
American.

Asimov discards the problem by saying that
"crustal mixing" removes the dust. Somehow, he says, all those
meteorites have disappeared. But his "crustal mixing" theory does not
explain the problem. Meteoritic materials are composed of iron, with
large amounts of nickel and other less common minerals. Yet there is not
enough of these elements in the crust (the top layer) of earth's surface
to agree with the idea of an old planet. For example, the average nickel
content of meteorites is 2.5 percent, whereas there is only 0.008
percent nickel in the rocks and soil of earth's crust. Similar
calculations with similar results have been made with iron.

River water carries about 0.75 billion pounds
[.3402 billion kg] of nickel each year to the ocean, and the ocean
contains about 7000 billion pounds [3,175 billion kg]. The amount of
nickel in the oceans could have been carried there from land in 9,000
years (or in half that time if a fair amount of nickel was in the
oceans to begin with). So the absence of high amounts of nickel on land
could not be caused by erosion into the seas. If the earth were as old
as the evolutionists declare it to be, there would, on the average, be
over 600 pounds [272 kg] of nickel on each square foot of the ocean
floor, but it simply is not there.

Once again, we find that the earth could only be a
few thousand years old.

"If the disintegration of comets [alone]
produces 14,300,000 tons [12,972,960 mt] of meteoritic dust each
year, and if the earth were but one billion years old--and most
evolutionists consider the world to be considerably older than that
there should be an 11-foot [33.5 dm] layer of meteorite dust upon
the earth, especially on the floor of the ocean. Where is it?"H.R.
Siegler, Evolution or Degeneration: Which? (1972), pp. 54-55.

29 - METEOR CRATERS Meteor
craters are fairly easy to locate, especially since we now have such
excellent aerial and satellite mapping systems. For example, the meteor
crater near Winslow, Arizona, is 3/4 mile [1.2 km] in diameter and 600
feet [1,829 dm] deep. Efforts have been made to locate meteor craters
in the rock strata, but without success. They always lie close to or on
the surface. This and erosional evidence indicate that all the meteor
craters which have struck the earth are all only a few thousand years
old. No larger meteors struck the earth prior to that time, for no
meteor craters are found anywhere in the lower rocks.

30-METEOR ROCKS Meteorites of various types are
continually plunging into earth's atmosphere, and some reach the surface
and are then called "meteorites." Supposedly this has happened for
millions of years yet all the meteorites discovered are always near the
earth's surface! None are ever found in the deeper ("older") sedimentary
strata. If the earth were very ancient,
many should be found farther down. This is an evidence of a young earth.
It is also an indication that the sedimentary strata was rather quickly
laid down not too long in the past.

"No meteorites have ever been found in the
geologic column."*Fred Whipple,
"Comets," in The New Astronomy, p. 207.

"While there are many meteorites buried in the
upper few feet or so of soil, there are few or none lower down, and
in particular in the alleged geological column. Surely this is a
strange situation, from the uniformitarian viewpoint. A Creationist,
on the other hand, will have no trouble in seeing why this is so.
For the materials of the column were not lying there for ages to
accumulate meteorites; they were deposited very quickly."News
note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1978, p. 88. (See
also *K Hindley, "Fallen Stars by the Ton" in New Scientist,
75(1059:20-22 (1977)).

*Asimov's theory, that "crustal mixing" removed
all trace of the meteorites, was mentioned earlier.

"It has been estimated that at least a million
meteors have hit the Earth's land surface, which is only 25 percent
of the planet. Every last trace of more than 99 percent of the
craters thus formed has vanished, erased by the effects of wind,
water, and living things." *Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Book of Facts
(1979), p. 404.

But the nickel from those meteorites should still
be there littering the earth's surface and to be found beneath it. But
this is not the case.

CLICK
TO ENLARGE

31 - TEKTITES Tektites
are a special type of glassy meteorite. Large areas containing them are
called "strewn fields." Although some scientists claim that tektites are
of earthly origin, there is definite evidence that they are actually
meteorites. Every so often, a shower of tektites falls to the earth. The
first were found in 1787 in what is now western Czechoslovakia. Those in
Australia were found in 1864. They were given the name tektites, from a
Greek word for "molten," because they appear to have melted in their
passage through the atmosphere. Tektites have also been found in Texas
and several other places. Each shower lies on the surface or in the
topmost layers of soil; they are never found in the sedimentary
fossil-bearing strata. If the earth were 5 billion years old, as
suggested by evolutionists, we should expect to find tektite showers in
all the strata. If the earth is only a few thousand years old, and a
Flood produced all the strata, we would expect to find the tektites only
in the topmost layers of the ground, and not in the deeper strata. And
that is where they are.

The tektites are found on top of, what
evolutionary theory calls, "recent" soil, not beneath it. The evidence
is clear that the tektites did not work their way up from beneath or
wash down from older sediments at a higher elevation.
Stream erosion studies in Czechoslovakia show that glass objects similar
to tektite material will wear down to 1/90th of their original mass
within only 40 km [24.84 miles]. In addition, studies made of
australites (tektites found in Australia) revealed a complete lack of
etching (scratch marks) on them. Comparing the data from the Czech and
Australian tektites, it is clear that (1) both were found in their
original locations, and (2) neither have been subjected to terrestrial
weathering more than a few thousand years (see *Smithsonian
Contributions to the Earth Science, No. 17).

In the 1960s two independent teams of
investigators searched for additional australites in the field and, upon
finding them, made radiocarbon datings of the wood by them and beneath
them. Based on a Carbon 14 age of 7,300 years, these investigators
say that the tektites cannot be older than an adjusted 6,500 years.
This would make the age of the earth very young (see *Journal of the
Geological Society of Australia, 18:409-418, and "Journal of Geophysical
Research, 75:996-1002.)

(We recognize that carbon 14 dating tends to yield
dates that are too old, but 6,500 years is far less than the millions
that the evolutionists offer.)

That, in brief, is the story of the tektites, and
it is yet another striking evidence of a young earth.

Next we shall consider EVIDENCE FROM THE
GLOBEthat the earth is quite young:

32 - EARTH ROTATION The spin of the earth which is
now about 1,000 miles [1,609 km] an hour is gradually slowing down.
This is caused by gravitational drag forces of the sun, moon, and other
factors. If the earth were really billions of years old, as claimed, it
would already have stopped turning on its axis! This is yet another
evidence that our world is not very old.

Using a different calculation, we can extrapolate
backwards from our present spin rate, and 5 billion years ago our planet
would have had to be spinning so fast it would have changed to the shape
of a flat pancake. And we today, would still have the effects of that.
Our equator would now reach 40 miles [64.3 km] up into the sky, and our
tropical areas--and all our oceans--would be at the poles. So, by either
type of calculation, our world cannot be more than a few thousand years
old.

33 MAGNETIC FIELD DECAY
As you probably know, the earth has a magnetic field. Without it, we
could not use compasses to identify the direction of magnetic north
(which is close to the North Pole). Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, a physics
teacher at the University of Texas, has authored a widely-used college
textbook on electricity and magnetism. Working with data collected over
the past 135 years, he has pointed out that earth's magnetic field is
gradually decaying. Indeed, he has shown that this magnetic field is
decreasing exponentially according to a decay law similar to the decay
of radioactive substances.

"During the past 150 years, the magnetic field
has declined in strength by 10 percent. If the decline continues at
this rate, the field will reach zero in about 1,500 years." "The
strength of today's [geomagnetic] field, for instance, seems to be
decreasing by about seven percent each century."
*Roberta Conlan, Frontiers of Time (1991), pp. 15, 21.

"It is known that the earth's magnetic field is
decaying faster than any other worldwide geophysical phenomenon. A
comprehensive ESSA Technical Report gives the values of the earth's
magnetic dipole moment (the vector which gives the strength and
direction of the magnet) ever since Karl Gauss made the first
evaluation in 1835. The evaluations have been made about every 10 or
15 years since then. Each evaluation required accurate worldwide
readings over an epoch (a year or so) and special mathematical
reduction to 'wash' out the 'noise.' These reliable data clearly
show this relatively rapid decay. The report stated that on a
straight line basis the earth's magnetic field would be gone in the
year 3991 A.D. But decay is exponential and in this case has a
half-life of 1400 years.

"A relatively recent NASA satellite preliminary
report shows a rapid decay in the earth's magnetic field. No
knowledgeable scientist debates the fact of the rapid decrease in
the earth's magnetic field, nor does he question that the associated
electric current in the core of the earth is using up energy. The
present rate of loss is seven billion kilowatt hours per year. The
earth is running out of that original energy it had in its original
magnetic field. "T.G. Barnes,
"Depletion of the Earth's Magnetic Field," in Creation: the Cutting
Edge, p. 155.

In 1835 the German physicist K.F. Gauss made the
first measurement of the earth's magnetic dipole moment, that is, the
strength of earth's internal magnet. Additional evaluations have been
carried out every decade or so since then. Since 1835, global magnetism
has decreased 14 percent!

On the basis of facts obtained from 1835 to 1965,
this magnetic field appears to have a half-life of 1400 years. On
this basis, even 7,000 years ago the earth would have had a magnetic
field 32 times stronger than it now has. Just 20,000 years ago,
enough Joule heat would have been generated to liquefy the earth. One
million years back, and the earth would have greater magnetism than all
objects in the universe, and the earth would have vaporized! It would
appear that the earth could not be over 6,000 or 7,000 years old. (For
more data on this, see two articles by Barnes: Battle for Creation
(1976), pp. 230242; Creation: the Cutting Edge (1982), pp. 154165.)

"As the magnetic field energy decays, it is
transformed into heat. The energy involved in this hypothetical
extrapolation less than 30,000 years into the past would be
sufficient to heat the entire earth to 5000C (9032F] and completely
vaporize it by now. The earth obviously is not now either melted or
vaporized. In the light of this analysis of the earth's decaying
magnetism observed for 130 years, extrapolation of earth history 4.5
billion years into the past leads to an absurdity. The evidence
supports an earth history of not much more than 10,000 years. "R.
E. Wahl and K.L. Segraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 194.

This magnetic decay process is not a local
process, as one would find in a uranium mineral, but worldwide; it
affects the entire earth. It has been accurately measured for over 150
years, and is not subject to environmental changes since it is generated
deep in the earth's interior.

"All the recent commotion about the exponential
depletion of our natural resources has singularly failed to mention
that we are also running out of a rather vital, apparently
nonrenewable resource, the Earth's magnetic field, quite rapidly."
*Fredrick B. Jueneman, "Magnetic Depletion" in Industrial Research
and Development, 20(8):13 (1978).

The data pertaining to this has been carefully
evaluated and checked.

"The only dependable historical data on the
strength and direction of the earth's main magnet are the
evaluations which were first made by Gauss in the 1830's and the
subsequent evaluations made through worldwide magnetic observatory
collaboration every few decades thereafter. These data show an
exponential decay in the earth's magnetic field with a half-life of
only 1400 years. A solution to Maxwell's equations for the electric
currents and associated magnetic field of the earth's magnet reveals
that there is an electric current of 6.16 billion amperes flowing in
the core of the earth and a power loss (going into heat) of 813
megawatts at the present time.

"It is obvious that this magnetic decay
phenomenon could not have been going on for more than a few thousand
years, as the magnetic field would have been implausibly large for
the earth. This is strong physical evidence that there must have
been a relatively recent origin of this electromagnet or some
unknown catastrophic 'reenergizing' event. The validity of this
theoretical and observational result is confirmed by means of an
independent check, namely an evaluation of the total magnetic energy
in the earth's present field and checking it against a hypothetical
reference magnet of the same strength and dimensions. The check is
excellent, and leaves little doubt that this physical solution is
the most meaningful interpretation of the earth's magnetic history."Thomas
G. Barnes, S.I.S. Review, 2:42-46 (1977).

Additional evidence was obtained from NASA's
Magsat satellite which orbited the earth from October 1979 to June 1980.
It was designed expressly to study earth's magnetic field. The data was
analyzed by * Robert Langel, chief project scientist, who issued the
official report.

"A satellite launched by NASA in 1979 has
gathered new data on the earth's decreasing magnetic field. Magsat,
as the satellite was called during its eight-month lifetime,
measured the earth's main magnetic field.

"The overall intensity of the earth's field was
found to be declining at a rate of 26 nanoteslas per year, with a
half-life of just 830 years) Thomas Barnes' results based on earlier
data gave a decay rate of 16 nanoteslas per year and a 1400 year
half-life. . Extrapolation shows that the field strength should
reach zero in 1200 years. The earth is younger, and time later, than
many think."Donald B. Deyoung,
"Decrease of Earth's Magnetic Field Confirmed, " in Creation
Research Society Quarterly, December 1980, pp. 187-188.

"If one takes the Langel projection, the earth's
magnetic shield will vanish completely in the year 3180 A.D. If one
takes the projection in a 1967 ESSA technical report, the vanishing
data for the earth's magnetic field is 3991 A.D."TG.
Barnes, "Satellite Observations Confirm the Decline of the Earth's
Magnetic Field, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1981,
p. 40.

The half life of carbon 14 is approximately 5,700
years. The earth's magnetic field is decaying about eight times faster
than the rate of decay for C-14. Yet without its magnetic field, the
inhabitants of earth would have no protection against harmful cosmic
rays. Normally, most of them are deflected by our magnetic field. But
the few that enter, produce showers of secondary rays in the atmosphere
and then head downward. They have been found in the bottom of deep
lakes. (Since it is cosmic rays which originate carbon 14 in our
atmosphere, this ongoing change in earth's magnetic field produces
changes in carbon 14 rates. This, in turn, dramatically affects C-14
clock dating results and makes those dates unreliable.

"If one computes the magnetic field strength
back in time 10 thousand years, the earth's magnetic field would
have been as strong as that of some magnetic stars. The reasonable
assumption has been made that the earth never had a magnetic field
as strong as a star's magnet.

"On the basis of an original magnetic field
strength of the earth that is less than that of a magnetic star, the
origin of the earth's magnet is less than 10 thousand years ago.

"Since there is no power generating plant in the
earth, its origin must have been at the time of creation. This means
that the young magnetic age of the earth's magnet also means a young
age for the earth itself. These conclusions are based upon the decay
theory of the earth's magnet. That is supported by (1) The real-time
evaluations of the earth's magnetic moment [from 1835 to the
present]. (2) The only rigorous theoretical explanation of the
present processes in this electromagnet. (3) Three types of
independent confirmational checks on that theory."Thomas
G. Barnes, "Earth's Young Magnetic Age Confirmed," in Creation
Research Society Quarterly, June 1986, p. 33.

None other than * Isaac Asimov agrees with the
basic findings in regard to the decay of our planet's magnetic core:

"Earth's magnetic field has been weakening. It
seems to have lost 15 percent of its strength since 1687. At the
present rate of decrease, it will reach zero in 2,000 more years.
Between the years 3500 and 4500, the magnetic field will not be
sufficiently strong to ward off charged radiation from outer space.
"*Asimov's Book of Facts (1979), p.
326.

Evolutionists try to defend their long ages
theories with radioactive half lives, but radioactive mineral decay
rates are highly unreliable because they are open systems, and are
subject to many forms of contamination and other factors which can
change their clock mechanisms (see chapter 7, Dating Methods).
If any fundamental planetary process ought to be a reliable indicator of
the earth's age, it should be this earth's magnetic field and it
indicates an upper limit of decidedly less than 10,000 years for the age
of the earth.

"The facts are:

"(1) The earth's dipole magnet is located in the
core of the earth more than a thousand miles from the earth's crust
(where the observable rocks are located).

"(2) It is an electromagnet dissipating almost a
billion joules of energy per second now.

"(3) It is known to be decaying more rapidly
than any other worldwide geophysical phenomenon. If the present
decaying process continues, the magnetic field will have vanished
within the extreme limits of time of 2,000 years to 11,000 years,
depending upon whether one uses an evolutionary or a creationist
presupposition.

"(4) There is at present no known source of
energy to re-energize the magnet when its energy runs down to zero.
One can safely say there is no theoretical reason at present to
consider anything other than a single continuing decay process that
started in the not-too-distant past, a creation only thousands of
years ago, not millions or billions of years ago."Thomas
G. Barnes, news note in Creation Research Society Quarterly,
December 1982, p. 196.

Most of the factors described above would apply
to the age of the earth, which appears to be decidedly less than
10,000 years. Most of the following items of evidence would apply to
the length of time since the Flood, which evidence indicates may
have occurred about 4,350 years ago.